From Sundance Film Festival to Scotiabank Theatre
St. John’s producer Margot Hand’s movie to be screened locally
Today she’s a Los Angeles-based film producer who has worked with stars such as Anjelica Huston, Colin Farrell and Luke Wilson, but growing up in St. John’s, Margot Hand thought a film career was a far-off dream.
The first movie she recalls seeing at the Avalon Mall was “The Lion King.” Now, on Friday a film she produced will be on the big screen there at Scotiabank Theatre.
Hand has produced many films, but the breakout comedy “Brittany Runs a Marathon” is the first to be available in St. John’s theatrically.
It stars Jillian Bell of the TV series “Workaholics,” as well as the movies “Office Christmas Party” and “22 Jump Street.”
The story of a hard-partying woman who takes control of her health and life by training to run the New York City Marathon was voted an audience favourite film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Hand was in town last week visiting her family, and stopped by The Telegram to talk about the movie. The 34-year-old said she’s “really excited” to have it screened in her hometown.
Hand grew up in St. John’s and completed a finance degree at Memorial University. After graduation, she moved to Vancouver and pursued her dream to work in film.
She landed a job in business affairs at Insight Film Studios, which was the largest film production company in Canada at the time, but it was producing what’s known in the business as MOWS (movies of the week), such as Hallmark and Lifetime films.
“I was like, ‘The movie industry sucks. I’m over it,’” Hand said with a laugh.
She worked in digital media for a while, but then was asked to consult, and that’s when she started producing and working on Hollywood movies.
Within a decade, she went from Vancouver to Los Angeles, and this year had what she called the greatest moment of her career so far: Amazon Studios acquired worldwide rights to “Brittany Runs a Marathon” during an all-night auction at Sundance, closing the deal at $14 million.
“To be in a bidding war was exciting,” she said.
“It’s intense. You’re up until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning going through deals, going through offers, talking through (it).”
Hand said Jillian Bell and producers Tobey Maguire and Matthew Plouffe felt they needed a female producer to shepherd the film through casting and production, and that’s how she came to be involved.
Hand said she hopes to return to Newfoundland one day not just to visit family and friends, but to shoot a movie. She called it “one of the dreams still on the bucket list.”